Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2022.2079309
Vicki Howard
ABSTRACT This thought piece focuses on the emergence of shopping as a popular cultural form in the United States in the period roughly before 1920. Drawing on both the history of these practices and the popular cultural images they generated, it argues that while economic exchanges have always had the potential for cultural conflict, resistance, or negotiation, shopping’s emergence as a popular leisure pastime and a pleasurable entertainment was closely tied to transformations in the commercial landscape in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It contributes to debates over the degree of agency afforded those who create/consume/participate in popular culture.
{"title":"Shopping as popular culture in America: a study of changing representations and practices before 1920","authors":"Vicki Howard","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2022.2079309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2022.2079309","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This thought piece focuses on the emergence of shopping as a popular cultural form in the United States in the period roughly before 1920. Drawing on both the history of these practices and the popular cultural images they generated, it argues that while economic exchanges have always had the potential for cultural conflict, resistance, or negotiation, shopping’s emergence as a popular leisure pastime and a pleasurable entertainment was closely tied to transformations in the commercial landscape in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It contributes to debates over the degree of agency afforded those who create/consume/participate in popular culture.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47773134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2022.2044196
D. Huppatz
ABSTRACT Over the past decade, self-service checkouts and app-based platforms have sparked a renewed interest in automated shopping. Yet the promise of an automated retail future – efficient, convenient and cheaper – has a long history, little examined by historians. As an initial study of this phenomenon, this article focuses on food vending machines in the United States from 1925 to 1939, an era when the hopes and hype of an automated future were high. Industry boosters argued that the new ‘robot salesmen’ would not only eliminate intermediaries such as store clerks and cashiers (and their associated labour costs) but that automated technologies would eventually replace traditional stores. Through an analysis of industry journals, collectors’ catalogues and the popular press, this article examines the rhetoric surrounding the potential of food distribution via machines. This hype is tested against the reality that some automated retail technologies succeeded while others failed.
{"title":"Robot salesmen: automated food retailing in the United States, 1925–39","authors":"D. Huppatz","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2022.2044196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2022.2044196","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 Over the past decade, self-service checkouts and app-based platforms have sparked a renewed interest in automated shopping. Yet the promise of an automated retail future – efficient, convenient and cheaper – has a long history, little examined by historians. As an initial study of this phenomenon, this article focuses on food vending machines in the United States from 1925 to 1939, an era when the hopes and hype of an automated future were high. Industry boosters argued that the new ‘robot salesmen’ would not only eliminate intermediaries such as store clerks and cashiers (and their associated labour costs) but that automated technologies would eventually replace traditional stores. Through an analysis of industry journals, collectors’ catalogues and the popular press, this article examines the rhetoric surrounding the potential of food distribution via machines. This hype is tested against the reality that some automated retail technologies succeeded while others failed.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45647171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518x.2022.2120290
James Davis
{"title":"The Price of Bread: Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic","authors":"James Davis","doi":"10.1080/2373518x.2022.2120290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518x.2022.2120290","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48117863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2022.2114679
Anne Sophie Overkamp
ABSTRACT This article discusses the ways in which German landed elites acquired clothing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To explore their practices of acquisition and engagement with the world of goods, the article draws on a wide range of archival material: private and mercantile correspondence, account books, and merchants' bills. It identifies how contemporaries learned about fashions, the role played by artisans and shopkeepers as arbiters of taste, and how friends, relatives, and agents assisted in the procurement of goods. By highlighting how notions of rank, status, and taste influenced consumer choices, and how traditional and modern practices interlinked, the article offers a corrective to the (assumed) “backwardness” of German retailing and shopping practices, revealing a set of practices and motivations which look remarkably similar to those seen in Britain, France, and the Low Countries.
{"title":"Polite practices of acquisition: how German elites shopped for clothes, 1770–1820","authors":"Anne Sophie Overkamp","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2022.2114679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2022.2114679","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article discusses the ways in which German landed elites acquired clothing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To explore their practices of acquisition and engagement with the world of goods, the article draws on a wide range of archival material: private and mercantile correspondence, account books, and merchants' bills. It identifies how contemporaries learned about fashions, the role played by artisans and shopkeepers as arbiters of taste, and how friends, relatives, and agents assisted in the procurement of goods. By highlighting how notions of rank, status, and taste influenced consumer choices, and how traditional and modern practices interlinked, the article offers a corrective to the (assumed) “backwardness” of German retailing and shopping practices, revealing a set of practices and motivations which look remarkably similar to those seen in Britain, France, and the Low Countries.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45160007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.1921445
Marie Ulväng
ABSTRACT This article explores the landowning farm households’ consumption of foreign and manufactured goods in the hinterland of northern Sweden in 1770 to 1820. A set of probate inventories shows that the farmers in this particular area – a remote but central transit area for goods between the Norwegian coast and southern Sweden – were part of the general historiography of consumption. However, the findings of tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, printed cotton, silk fabrics and worsted fabrics show that their consumer behaviour – defined as ‘semi-industrious’ – was shaped by the area’s characteristics. The farmers increased their market participation and consumption of goods without breaking their existing consumption culture. They simply acquired more of the same – worsted fabrics for clothing and accessories in printed cotton and silk fabrics. The pattern of consumption is explained by the area’s firm population structure, strong class barriers and practical aspects such as poor housing. The manufactured fabrics responded to many purposes in the farmers’ day-to-day lives. The worsted fabrics were durable, warm and exclusive and the accessories fashionable. Compared with tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, clothing was a versatile belonging that did not need a home to be shown.
{"title":"Tea, coffee or printed cotton? Farm households’ consumption of goods in Northern Sweden, 1760–1820","authors":"Marie Ulväng","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1921445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1921445","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the landowning farm households’ consumption of foreign and manufactured goods in the hinterland of northern Sweden in 1770 to 1820. A set of probate inventories shows that the farmers in this particular area – a remote but central transit area for goods between the Norwegian coast and southern Sweden – were part of the general historiography of consumption. However, the findings of tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, printed cotton, silk fabrics and worsted fabrics show that their consumer behaviour – defined as ‘semi-industrious’ – was shaped by the area’s characteristics. The farmers increased their market participation and consumption of goods without breaking their existing consumption culture. They simply acquired more of the same – worsted fabrics for clothing and accessories in printed cotton and silk fabrics. The pattern of consumption is explained by the area’s firm population structure, strong class barriers and practical aspects such as poor housing. The manufactured fabrics responded to many purposes in the farmers’ day-to-day lives. The worsted fabrics were durable, warm and exclusive and the accessories fashionable. Compared with tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, clothing was a versatile belonging that did not need a home to be shown.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1921445","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45658493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.1982532
K. Meakin
ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of women in window display in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Window display in 1920s Britain was very much men’s work. Even when women were encouraged by those outside the profession, they were not necessarily encouraged by those within it. In 1923 the daily press and women’s journals devoted space to the debate on window dressing as an ideal and suitable profession for women. However, the editorial of Display, the official organ of the British Association of Display Men, disagreed. Display believed that women were unsuccessful at window dressing, justified by claiming they did not have the natural ability to create artistic ‘open’ displays. Although the article’s author claimed they welcomed women, they believed many who had attempted it had to give it up, with their windows lacking strength and character. Nevertheless, there were successful professional female display practitioners. This paper discusses the role of women in British display, from early pioneers such as Ethel Wimhurst in 1919 to the brash American Martha Harris, who impacted on London display in the early 1930s. They and others railed against the odds to have rich and fulfilling careers.
{"title":"Women in British window display during the 1920s and 1930s","authors":"K. Meakin","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1982532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1982532","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of women in window display in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Window display in 1920s Britain was very much men’s work. Even when women were encouraged by those outside the profession, they were not necessarily encouraged by those within it. In 1923 the daily press and women’s journals devoted space to the debate on window dressing as an ideal and suitable profession for women. However, the editorial of Display, the official organ of the British Association of Display Men, disagreed. Display believed that women were unsuccessful at window dressing, justified by claiming they did not have the natural ability to create artistic ‘open’ displays. Although the article’s author claimed they welcomed women, they believed many who had attempted it had to give it up, with their windows lacking strength and character. Nevertheless, there were successful professional female display practitioners. This paper discusses the role of women in British display, from early pioneers such as Ethel Wimhurst in 1919 to the brash American Martha Harris, who impacted on London display in the early 1930s. They and others railed against the odds to have rich and fulfilling careers.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45304961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.2004709
C. Ness
ABSTRACT Following World War II, the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (INCSOC) collaborated with British textile manufacturers and the Board of Trade in a bid to stimulate the war-ravaged economy through export orders of British fashions and fabrics until the early 1960s. British couture was considered the ‘shop-window’ for a campaign that began with the founding of INCSOC in 1942 and the production of designs for the Utility clothing scheme. INCSOC worked with the International Wool Secretariat (IWS), the Cotton Board and the British Man-Made Fibres Federation producing designs using fabrics provided by the textile companies who frequently funded the cost of production. The fashion press helped promote the resulting designs, fashion shows and displays along with ready-to-wear and wholesale fashion companies where the bulk of potential orders lay. Royalty and celebrity were regularly photographed and filmed attending fashion shows or wearing British designs in British fabrics to endorse promotions involving INCSOC. Primary sources, including surviving examples of INCSOC couture, provide evidence here for investigating how often the designs, in each of the fibres, were made for the couturiers bi-annual collections or were just for showing through promotional campaigns.
{"title":"Couture clothes for show: the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers promotional designs for British cotton, wool and synthetic fibres, 1940s–1960s","authors":"C. Ness","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.2004709","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.2004709","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Following World War II, the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (INCSOC) collaborated with British textile manufacturers and the Board of Trade in a bid to stimulate the war-ravaged economy through export orders of British fashions and fabrics until the early 1960s. British couture was considered the ‘shop-window’ for a campaign that began with the founding of INCSOC in 1942 and the production of designs for the Utility clothing scheme. INCSOC worked with the International Wool Secretariat (IWS), the Cotton Board and the British Man-Made Fibres Federation producing designs using fabrics provided by the textile companies who frequently funded the cost of production. The fashion press helped promote the resulting designs, fashion shows and displays along with ready-to-wear and wholesale fashion companies where the bulk of potential orders lay. Royalty and celebrity were regularly photographed and filmed attending fashion shows or wearing British designs in British fabrics to endorse promotions involving INCSOC. Primary sources, including surviving examples of INCSOC couture, provide evidence here for investigating how often the designs, in each of the fibres, were made for the couturiers bi-annual collections or were just for showing through promotional campaigns.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43697555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343
L. O’Hagan
ABSTRACT This paper conducts a case study of the marketing of Virol – a malt extract preparation that was popular in early twentieth-century Britain – using advertisements from British newspapers. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it explores how marketers drew upon linguistic/semiotic resources to embed Virol in discourses of scientific knowledge and how these discourses were made to appear true. Through targeted marketing campaigns, Virol established consumer bases framed around three health concerns: malnutrition, constipation and anxiety. Using testimonies, buzzwords, photographs and infographics, Virol created an illusion of scientific rationality, yet the studies or authority figures behind their findings were never explicitly specified, leaving consumers to make assumptions about the product’s benefits using their own limited understandings. As women were the primary household shoppers, ‘scientific motherhood’ (and ‘wifehood’) was also drawn upon, producing a dichotomy that framed women as responsible for their families’ health, yet incapable of this responsibility without expert intervention.
{"title":"Blinded by science? Constructing truth and authority in early twentieth-century Virol advertisements","authors":"L. O’Hagan","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1983343","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper conducts a case study of the marketing of Virol – a malt extract preparation that was popular in early twentieth-century Britain – using advertisements from British newspapers. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it explores how marketers drew upon linguistic/semiotic resources to embed Virol in discourses of scientific knowledge and how these discourses were made to appear true. Through targeted marketing campaigns, Virol established consumer bases framed around three health concerns: malnutrition, constipation and anxiety. Using testimonies, buzzwords, photographs and infographics, Virol created an illusion of scientific rationality, yet the studies or authority figures behind their findings were never explicitly specified, leaving consumers to make assumptions about the product’s benefits using their own limited understandings. As women were the primary household shoppers, ‘scientific motherhood’ (and ‘wifehood’) was also drawn upon, producing a dichotomy that framed women as responsible for their families’ health, yet incapable of this responsibility without expert intervention.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45029007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.1984688
S. Elvins
ABSTRACT This article explores the history of the department store escalator in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. Department stores were crucial in adopting new technologies in the city. Many people first encountered ‘moving staircases’ in the aisles of the store. The installation of new escalators became an occasion for celebration, as stores emphasized their modernity and commitment to progress. Familiarity with riding on escalators could separate the urban sophisticate from the country bumpkin. Well into the 1940s, crowds greeted escalators with enthusiasm. For retailers, the technology offered new possibilities for store layouts and convenience for shoppers and employees. As the escalator became standard equipment in the modern store, the potential dangers posed to riders were downplayed.
{"title":"‘A stairway that does its own climbing’: the department store escalator and the promises of modernity, 1900–1950","authors":"S. Elvins","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1984688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1984688","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the history of the department store escalator in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. Department stores were crucial in adopting new technologies in the city. Many people first encountered ‘moving staircases’ in the aisles of the store. The installation of new escalators became an occasion for celebration, as stores emphasized their modernity and commitment to progress. Familiarity with riding on escalators could separate the urban sophisticate from the country bumpkin. Well into the 1940s, crowds greeted escalators with enthusiasm. For retailers, the technology offered new possibilities for store layouts and convenience for shoppers and employees. As the escalator became standard equipment in the modern store, the potential dangers posed to riders were downplayed.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47047944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2021.1935113
E. Roberts
ABSTRACT This paper examines the work and work culture of department store salespeople in New Zealand department stores. Following the management advice of American, British, and Australian experts New Zealand store managers cultivated the notion of a store family and imported welfare work practices aimed at creating happy employees and a culture of consumption and modernity. The organization of New Zealand department stores was formally similar to those in the United States and Australia, but most stores were smaller with fewer than 500 employees. Departments in New Zealand stores were smaller and the role of buyers as department managers was attenuated. In this setting the efforts of management to cultivate a store family and a workplace social life that spanned departments were successful.
{"title":"‘One big club of which we are all members’: management and work culture in New Zealand department stores, c. 1910–1960","authors":"E. Roberts","doi":"10.1080/2373518X.2021.1935113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1935113","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the work and work culture of department store salespeople in New Zealand department stores. Following the management advice of American, British, and Australian experts New Zealand store managers cultivated the notion of a store family and imported welfare work practices aimed at creating happy employees and a culture of consumption and modernity. The organization of New Zealand department stores was formally similar to those in the United States and Australia, but most stores were smaller with fewer than 500 employees. Departments in New Zealand stores were smaller and the role of buyers as department managers was attenuated. In this setting the efforts of management to cultivate a store family and a workplace social life that spanned departments were successful.","PeriodicalId":36537,"journal":{"name":"History of Retailing and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2373518X.2021.1935113","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43320032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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